Joe McBride's Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of JFK and JD Tippit

INTO THE NIGHTMARE: MY SEARCH FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT

By Joseph McBride (Hightower Press, 2013, 675 pages).  

Joe McBride, photographed in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, 1983.

Doug Moe:

Joe McBride goes public with private obsession about Kennedy assassination

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The Joe McBride I know is a former Wisconsin State Journal reporter who fell in love with movies on the UW-Madisoncampus, chased his film dream to California, and, more than most, actually caught a piece of it.

McBride, 65, can tell stories of drinking with Sam Peckinpahand being cast in a film by Orson Welles. He co-wrote a cult movie, “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” and authored several acclaimed books on film. In 2000, he took a teaching position at San Francisco State University and recently was made a full professor.

I have spoken to McBride several times, mostly about film, and occasionally about newspapers and Madison lore. It was always enjoyable. Not once did he mention John F. Kennedy, the president assassinated in Dallas 50 years ago this November,

That seems worth noting since it turns out that while film may be McBride’s passion, the Kennedy assassination is his obsession. He was quiet about it for a long time.

“You risk a certain amount of ridicule and abuse,” McBride said last week by phone from California. Some people are always going to roll their eyes at the suggestion anyone besides Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed Kennedy, and McBride most certainly believes it wasn’t Oswald.

McBride kept his off-and-on research of the case — which began almost immediately after Kennedy’s death and intensified later, with trips to Texas and extensive interviewing — largely to himself. Investigative reporters McBride respected told him wading into the assassination quagmire was inviting career suicide.

Now, with the 50th anniversary fast approaching, McBride has put himself front and center, in full view of the eye-rollers as well as the conspiracy advocates, with publication of his latest book, “Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.”

Say this for McBride: He comes by his obsession honestly. He met Kennedy, shook his hand, spoke with him, snapped a close-up photo during the 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign, and subsequently received a note from the charismatic candidate.

McBride’s mother, Marian McBride, was a Milwaukee newspaper reporter, and in 1960 was vice chairwoman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party (future governor Pat Lucey was chairman). Both Marian and Lucey backed Kennedy against Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin Democratic primary.

Joe McBride was 12 years old in 1960, and, through his mother, a member of Wisconsin Volunteers for Kennedy. That March — the Wisconsin primary was in April — McBride went door to door in his Wauwatosa neighborhood handing out reprints of the noted journalist John Hersey’s magazine piece on Kennedy’s wartime command of a torpedo boat.

McBride was there on March 31, 1960, when Kennedy appeared at a noon “Kids for Kennedy” rally at the Wauwatosa Civic Center. Madison Mayor Ivan Nestingen 

introduced him. Kennedy arrived without an entourage and there were only about 100 people, mostly children and their mothers, in the room.

Kennedy spoke about his book, “Profiles in Courage,” which the young McBride had recently read. From the lectern Kennedy asked if anyone could name, from the book, the men he identified as “the three most gifted parliamentary leaders in American history.”

McBride’s hand shot up, and Kennedy pointed at him.

“Webster, Clay and Calhoun,” McBride said.

Kennedy grinned. “I hope I don’t have to run against you in 1964,” he said.

That experience, which included meeting the candidate in a receiving line, forged a bond in the 12-year-old’s mind. The following January, McBride ran home from school to watch Kennedy’sinaugural address on television. Less than three years later, he ran from school to a nearby drugstore, where he knew there was a working radio, when he heard Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Yet that day, as hours passed and the news accounts of the shooting began to change and conflict in their details, McBride grew skeptical. What really happened in Dallas?

These scenes are related in “Into the Nightmare,” and McBride’s deeply felt personal anguish as a boy lays a convincing groundwork for what is to come.

By December 1966, McBride was attending UW-Madison and wrote a letter, published in The Capital Times, expressing doubt about the findings in the Warren Report. It was his first public statement on the assassination.

McBride read the growing body of work by others who doubted the official version of events. He assesses the relative value of many of those authors and their books in “Into the Nightmare.”

Even as his film writing career grew, McBride continued his probe. He went to Dallas in November 1983, on the 20th anniversary of the assassination, and again a decade later. He did interviews, including some with witnesses or their families who had never talked before. Increasingly, McBride began to focus on J.D. Tippit, the Dallas police officer who, in the official version, was shot by Oswald the same day Kennedy was shot. McBride doesn’t think Oswald killed either Kennedy or Tippit.

His reasons make up the balance of “Into the Nightmare,” a personal, exhaustive investigation into the assassination and its aftermath. I have to say, McBride lost me a few times during our long telephone interview last week. I wonder if all the thought and work he put into it, in the end, was worth it. I suppose the 12-year-old reading “Profiles in Courage” would say yes.

[Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com. His column appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.]

'Into the Nightmare' probes John F. Kennedy assassination

By Ray Kelly, The Republican   July 18, 2013 at 11:35 AM

http://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/07/into_the_nightmare_probes_john.html

A myriad of books examining President John F. Kennedy’s life, death and legacy are due as the 50th anniversary of his assassination nears on Nov. 22.

Since that fateful day in Dallas, there have been those who believe JFK was the victim of a government conspiracy. They reject the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman.

One of most exhaustive looks at an assassination conspiracy is now out – “Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit” by Joseph McBride. (Hightower Press, 675 pages). 

As a youngster, you worked on the Kennedy presidential campaign. What did he mean to you as an Irish Catholic?

As a 12-year-old growing up in Milwaukee, I aspired to be a lawyer and a politician. My work as a volunteer on the 1960 John F. Kennedy Wisconsin presidential primary campaign came about because my mother, Marian McBride, was vice chairman of the state Democratic Party. As Irish Catholics, our family was excited that one of our ethnic group was seriously being considered for the presidency; my mother vividly recalled the anti-Catholic prejudice that helped sink the Al Smith campaign in 1928.

My father, Raymond E. McBride, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal, wore my “Al Smith for President” button to work the day Kennedy was elected president. When my mother and Wisconsin party chairman Patrick Lucey threw their support to JFK instead of Hubert Humphrey, the senator from our neighboring state of Minnesota who had long been a favorite and champion of Wisconsin liberals, it gave JFK a major boost in his campaign. But I responded as much to Kennedy’s aura of youthful idealism and his relative liberalism as I did to his ethnicity. He seemed a breath of fresh air after the Eisenhower years, though I now realize how much I underestimated Ike and somewhat romanticized Kennedy. My campaigning for JFK enabled me to meet him twice during the campaign. I would have continued to pursue my goal of a political career if my candidate had not been murdered and the authorities had not tried to cover up the crime. As a result, I lost my faith in the political system and turned to a writing career. Hence this book.

What was your reaction to hearing the news of his murder on Nov. 22, 1963?

I immediately ran from the cafeteria line at Marquette University High School to a nearby drugstore to listen to the breaking news on the radio. I always have an instinctive need to follow the news as it happens. Like just about everyone else, of course, I was stunned by the shooting, and I remember instantly regretting that I had not known that Kennedy was in Texas and resolving never again to be so out of the loop. But part of me was not totally surprised by this shattering development, because for my freshman English class in October 1961, I had written a short story about JFK being assassinated. I think my proximity to him in the 1960 campaign (including rudely blowing off a flashbulb three feet from his face, startling him before he quickly recovered and smiled graciously) showed me how vulnerable he was. I also had studied the Lincoln assassination and understand the dangers presidents face. But the news of his death upended my existence in many critical ways and helped determine my future.

When did you first question the lone gunman theory?

By 1 p.m. that day, Central Standard Time, i.e., 30 minutes after Kennedy was shot. When I first began hearing the breaking network news reports on the radio about 12:40, they all said the shots had come from in front of the motorcade, in the area of the overpass and grassy hill overlooking Elm Street in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. Then at 1, the reports started claiming, without explanation, that the shots had all come from a building behind the president. I was already a budding journalist, from a newspaper family, and knew enough to realize something was awry when a story abruptly changed without explanation. By that evening, as I watched and listened to the accused man, Lee Harvey Oswald, protesting his innocence and declaring that he was “just a patsy,” I believed him. 

You are best known for 15 critical and biographical books on filmmakers and the entertainment industry. How different was this book for you to write? 

My first book, which I began writing in May 1963 as a high school student, was a study of baseball slang, “High and Inside: An A-to-Z Guide to the Language of Baseball.” So this is my second book that is not about film, mostly, although I have chapters in “Into the Nightmare” on the Abraham Zapruder film of the assassination and on the television and radio coverage during the assassination weekend, and I write extensively about how the media have distorted this case. My interests going far back were always as much directed toward politics and history as they were to film.

Over the years I have read as much about the assassination and related historical topics as about film history. So in a sense this book was not a deviation but my avocation; and I consider this investigation my true life’s work. It was a challenge to write about an area in which I was not recognized as an expert. It helped stretch me as a writer. This is a difficult subject for anyone to write about, so it took me 31 years to research and write this massive book and to work out the ideal structure for it, that of a memoir of the evolution of my understanding and personal investigation of the case.

Those who believe in an assassination conspiracy often get painted with a broad brush. Is this a project you have kept quiet during your decades of research?

Anyone who differs from the official view that a lone gunman killed Kennedy has to learn to endure a certain amount of ridicule and disdain, even though opinion polls have consistently shown that about 70 per cent of the American public doesn’t believe the official story. Those who uphold the official myth, including most of the mainstream media, have long resorted to mockery and abuse of those of us who dissent. So you learn to choose your arguments. I also learned long ago that it’s wisest to keep a low profile in investigating such a sensitive case, for a variety of reasons, including security and the need to steer clear of disruptive disinformation. I kept “Into the Nightmare” mostly on a need-to-know basis while doing interviews and research for the book in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and California for many years. The writing occupied the last nine years, and only a handful of friends and family knew what I was doing during that period. 

"Into the Nightmare" points out numerous holes in the lone gunman theory. You paint Lee Harvey Oswald as the patsy. What drove you to that conclusion?

Not only did I find Oswald credible in his denials, and realized that his murder by the mob-connected Jack Ruby while surrounded by dozens of policemen in the basement of police headquarters was a sign that he was being silenced in what amounted to an official lynching, I came to realize while studying the Warren Report critically and reading other researchers’ work that the official account was full of holes and inconsistencies. After I launched my own investigation in 1982, I was able to uncover many more contradictions, lies, and unfollowed leads that convinced me that we were being systematically misled by our government. The supposed “proofs” of Oswald’s guilt offered by the Warren Report are ludicrously inadequate and are demolished in the book. I found that there is no credible evidence that Oswald was involved in the shootings of President Kennedy or of Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit.

The extraordinarily muddled evidence in the Tippit case, which has largely remained underexplored up until now, took a great deal of work for me to make sense out of, and it points to two, three, or even four men involved in the shooting. I believe that “Into the Nightmare” is the most exhaustive and revealing study yet conducted of the crucial Tippit case. I go into considerable detail in the book in demonstrating the falsity of what Oswald called the “so-called evidence” against him, and in addition to exonerating him, I point to other suspects in both murders. I believe Oswald was a patriotic American who was working undercover for the FBI and other U.S. agencies to infiltrate the plot against President Kennedy, not realizing until too late that he was being framed as the perpetrator.

Authorities determined Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit was killed by Oswald. Why have you rejected that conclusion?

The Dallas police quickly dropped their shoddy “investigation” of the Tippit murder when Oswald was shot two days later, and the Warren Report relied on ballistics evidence to claim that Oswald shot Tippit. That “so-called evidence” is a mess that fails to link Oswald to the shooting and, if anything, points to two other shooters. Some witnesses claimed to have identified Oswald being at the scene, but other witnesses would not identify him as a shooter, and some described other men involved and suspicious cars at the scene. Perhaps most importantly, Oswald could not have walked from his rooming house in Oak Cliff to the scene of the Tippit shooting in time to have committed the murder; the Warren Commission falsified the time involved to make its dubious theory work. If Oswald was at the scene at all, he would have had to have been driven there, but there is no proof of that.

In my research, which included rare interviews with key people in Texas and archival discoveries, I uncovered new evidence that Officer Tippit in fact was hunting for Oswald in Oak Cliff during the last 24 minutes of Tippit’s life, becoming more and more frantic in his search. This behavior indicates that Tippit was involved in a conspiracy, since the Dallas police at that time officially did not know of Oswald’s identity.

Whether Tippit was supposed to capture or kill Oswald is not certain (probably the latter), but the officer’s actions in that period clearly demonstrate that he was not the innocent, heroic victim he was portrayed as being. 

Who do you think stood to gain the most from the death of JFK?

As New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison put it, “The one man who has profited the most from the assassination – your friendly president, Lyndon Johnson!” Garrison was unfairly maligned for trying to bring a criminal case against a CIA operative for involvement in the plot, and in those early years I was in a state of denial that LBJ could have been involved in the assassination, but that conclusion now seems inescapable. The planning of the motorcade in the vice president’s home state, the staging of the crossfire in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, and the new president’s engineering of the cover-up make it clear that he and his allies were involved. He was facing expulsion from the 1964 Democratic ticket as well as a possible jail term for corruption, but the assassination rescued him from ruin. I believe the evidence is abundantly clear that this was a military coup abetted by other government agencies, including the FBI and the Secret Service. While that may be hard for some people to believe, a careful study of the security lapses that allowed the assassination to occur, as well as the blaming of the crime on a patsy who worked as a government informant, the murder of the patsy in police custody, and the alteration or destruction of much of the evidence to cover up the conspiracy make it obvious to anyone with an open mind that this was an inside job.

The beneficiaries were Johnson and the military-industrial complex that owned him and which he helped enrich with the Vietnam War. Through my extensive research, I shed new light on the murderous political context of the case, including the hatred against Kennedy by Texas right-wing extremists, and I demonstrate that Officer Tippit was one of the key ground-level functionaries in that high-level plot. 

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…my extensive research, which included rare interviews with key people in Texas and archival discoveries, I was able to demonstrate that Officer J. D. Tippit was hunting for Oswald for the last twenty-four minutes of Tippit's life.

This proves that Tippit was involved in the conspiracy, because Oswald's identity was not officially known to the Dallas Police Department at the time. Other researchers have theorized that Tippit may have been doing this, but I uncover proof that Tippit was pursuing Oswald to capture or perhaps kill him. Tippit was racing around Oak Cliff increasingly frantically, and another officer was also involved in the pursuit. While exonerating Oswald and other suspects in the shooting, I point to possible suspects and believe that two, three, or even four men were involved.

My personal dealings with Mary Ferrell quickly alerted me to her duplicity. My investigative reporter's instincts for a phony quickly kicked in, and I began investigating her background and MO. I go into this in detail in the book and can only summarize it here. I concluded that she was what fellow Tippit researcher Greg Lowrey called "The Gatekeeper," the person delegated by the U.S. government to keep tabs on what genuine researchers and others were doing. She doled out documents and other information to maintain the facade of being a researcher, but she had intelligence connections and spread disinformation. She also actively disliked John F. Kennedy.

Penn Jones warned me to stay away from her. He was a great journalist who was a maverick and was on the case from the first weekend. He turned up many important leads for the rest of us to follow. He made some mistakes and was sometimes sloppy. But he was intrepid, fearless, shrewd, and hard-digging. He was an inspiration to me and many others and was a mentor to me and a friend.

….Other researchers and journalists have speculated from December 1963 that Tippit may have been tracking down Oswald. I studied the frantic actions of Tippit as reported by Earl Golz, Greg Lowrey, and other researchers. Tippit clearly gave signs of hunting for a man.

I had a revealing interview with Edgar Lee Tippit, the father of the late officer. The elder Tippit was a lively ninety when I interviewed him. He revealed to me that after his son's death, another Dallas police officer went to J. D.'s widow, Marie, and told her he and J. D. had been sent by the police to hunt down Oswald. Whether this was to capture him or kill him is not certain, but the evidence indicates that the latter is a strong possibility. This was at a time when Oswald's identity was not officially known to the DPD, although there is evidence indicating they knew about him and had fingered him as the patsy.
The other officer told Marie that he had not made it to the scene of the shooting because he became involved in an auto accident. This story had never been reported before, and Edgar Lee Tippit had
never been interviewed.

I found evidence that there was an auto accident near the time and place of the Tippit shooting. I studied the police dispatch tapes, FBI reports, HSCA interviews, and other documents to ascertain the movements of other officers around Oak Cliff. I had the first interview by a researcher with Tippit witness T. F. Bowley. Other policemen were behaving suspiciously in Oak Cliff besides Tippit. I believe another policeman or perhaps two policeman and probably a civilian as well were involved in the shooting of Tippit. I go into great detail on all this in the book and offer a wealth of evidence. I identify possible suspects in both shootings and exonerate others, including Oswald. Edgar Lee Tippit also provided me with other important information about his son, who in other books has been a mostly shadowy figure. I also had candid interviews with, among other people, Tippit's mistress Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon, his rightwing employer Austin Cook, and Detective James Leavelle, who headed the "investigation" of the Tippit killing.

There is much new material in the book, partly because I worked on it for more than thirty years….

….I had a revealing interview with Edgar Lee Tippit, the father of the late officer. The elder Tippit was a lively ninety when I interviewed him. He revealed to me that after his son's death, another Dallas police officer went to J. D.'s widow, Marie, and told her he and J. D. had been sent by the police to hunt down Oswald.

I believe another policeman or perhaps two policeman [sic] and probably a civilian as well were involved in the shooting of Tippit. I go into great detail on all this in the book and offer a wealth of evidence. I identify possible suspects in both shootings and exonerate others, including Oswald…..

The Warren Report relied mostly on ballistics evidence to claim that Oswald killed Tippit, but that evidence was a mess.  An FBI expert testified that the bullets could not be linked to the shells allegedly found at the scene and entered into evidence. The chain of evidence on three of the four bullets was seriously flawed. The shells were not in fact marked at the scene by the police, as Detective James Leavelle admitted to me. Three

of the bullets suspiciously turned up in the dead files of the Dallas Police Department long after the fact.  Evidence suggests the bullets entered into evidence were planted.  ther shells found at the scene were not entered into evidence.  Officers reported an automatic was used; Oswald was said to have a revolver.

As for the witnesses, some (actually nine) indeed identified Oswald as the shooter or a man fleeing from the scene.  But Helen Markham, the star witness, was hysterical and hopelessly confused.  She may not have even seen the shooting.  The closest witness, Domingo Benavides, wouldn't identify Oswald as the shooter and was not brought to view a lineup.  Benavides only identified Oswald years later on TV after his brother was shot and killed.  An extraordinary amount of violence and intimidation surrounded Tippit witnesses, a sign of the extreme sensitivity of that part of the case, which David Belin called its "Rosetta Stone."  The llneups from which some witnesses identified Oswald were tainted because it was obvious Oswald was the designated suspect at those showings. Ten witnesses who saw parts of the events would not identify Oswald as the shooter or the man fleeing.  Other witnesses said other men were involved in the shooting.  Suspicious vehicles, including another police car, were seen at the scene.  It is likely Oswald was not even there. I identify likely suspects in the shooting, including one or two Dallas police officers.  I exonerate other suspects, including Oswald.  I demolish the weak case brought by the DPD against Oswald in the Tippit shooting and do so with the help of the lead detective, Leavelle, whom I grilled closely.  He admitted many of the flaws in the case.  Former DA Henry Wade, whom I interviewed, similarly admitted to me the flaws in the case against Oswald for allegedly shooting Kennedy.  These key law enforcement men were not able to marshal convincing evidence against Oswald when I questioned them in close detail.   Wade told the Warren Commission that as early as November 23, he "felt like nearly it was a hopeless case" against Oswald for shooting Kennedy.  He told the commission, "I wasn't sure I was going to take a complaint."  And Wade admitted to me, "I probably made a lot of mistakes."

Oswald did not try to shoot a policeman at the theater.  An FBI expert testified there was no dent on the cartridge in the gun that supposedly had misfired.

….Oswald could not have walked from his rooming house in Oak Cliff in time to shoot Tippit. The Tippit shooting took place at 1:09, or a minute earlier,and Oswald was seen at his rooming house nine-tenths of a mile away at about 1:04. The Warren Report distorts the time of the shooting to prove its dubious case.  I conducted the first interview by a researcher with T. F. Bowley, who said he came upon the dead officer at 1:10. Oswald could only have been at the Tippit shooting scene if he had been driven there, and that seems unlikely.  As for the police dispatch describing the suspect, that was vague and could have applied to thousands of men in Dallas. Tippit was given more explicit instructions, not by the regular police radio, to find Oswald. This is backed up by a variety of sources and evidence. [...T]he police radio did contain odd instructions singling out Tippit to be at large in Oak Cliff for a possible emergency…..

The Warren Report relied mostly on ballistics evidence to claim that Oswald killed Tippit, but that evidence was a mess. An FBI expert testified that the bullets not be linked to the shells allegedly found at the scene and entered into evidence. The chain of evidence on three of the four bullets was seriously flawed. The shells were not in fact marked at the scene by the police, as Detective James Leavelle admitted to me. Three

of the bullets suspiciously turned up in the dead files of the Dallas Police Department long after the fact. Evidence suggests the bullets entered into evidence were planted. Other shells at the scene were not entered into evidence. Officers reported an automatic

was used; Oswald was said to have a revolver.

As for the witnesses, some (actually nine) indeed identified Oswald as the shooter or

 man fleeing from the scene. But Helen Markham, the star witness, was hysterical and hopelessly confused. She may not have even seen the shooting. The closest witness, Domingo Benavides, wouldn't identify Oswald as the shooter and was not brought to view a lineup.

Benavides only identified Oswald years later on TV after his brother was shot and killed. An extraordinary amount of violence and intimidation surrounded Tippit witnesses, a sign of the extreme sensitivity of that part of the case, which David Belin called its "Rosetta stone."

…..lineups from which some witnesses identified Oswald were tainted because it was obvious Oswald was the designated suspect at those showings. Ten witnesses who saw parts of the events would not identify Oswald as the shooter or the man fleeing. Other witnesses said other men were involved in the shooting. Suspicious vehicles, another police car, were seen at the scene. It is likely Oswald was not even there. I identify likely suspects in the shooting, including one or two Dallas police officers.

I exonerate other suspects, including Oswald.

I demolish the weak case brought by the DPD against Oswald in the Tippit shooting and do so with the help of the lead detective, Leavelle, whom I grilled closely. He admitted many of the flaws in the case. Former DA Henry Wade, whom I interviewed, similarly admitted to me the flaws the case against Oswald for allegedly shooting Kennedy. These key law enforcement men were not able to marshal convincing evidence against Oswald

when I questioned them in close detail. Wade told the Warren Commission that as early as November 23, he "felt like nearly it was a hopeless case" against Oswald for shooting Kennedy. He told the commission, "I wasn't sure I was going to take a complaint." And Wade admitted to me, "I probably made a lot of mistakes."

Oswald did not try to shoot a policeman at the theater. An FBI expert testified there was no dent on the cartridge in the gun that supposedly had misfired.

So you are placing credence on what Oswald correctly called "so-called evidence" that is easy to discredit. Also, as I am sure you know, Oswald could not have walked from his rooming house in Oak Cliff in time to shoot Tippit. The Tippit shooting took place at 1:09, or a minute earlier, and Oswald was seen at his rooming house nine-tenths of a mile away at about 1:04. The Warren Report distorts the time of the shooting to prove its dubious case.

I conducted the first interview by a researcher with T. F. Bowley, who said he came upon the dead officer at 1:10. Oswald could only have been at the Tippit shooting scene if he had been driven there, and that seems unlikely.

As for the police dispatch describing the suspect, that was vague and could have applied

to thousands of men in Dallas. Tippit was given more explicit instructions, not by the regular police radio, to find Oswald. This is backed up by a variety of sources and evidence. You also know that the police radio did contain odd instructions singling out Tippit to be at large in Oak Cliff for a possible emergency.

I propose alternate theories of the Tippit shooting and back them up with eyewitness and other evidence. I also bring forward some new evidence in the Kennedy shooting. I hope you read the book with an open mind.

Oswald's identity supposedly was not known by the Dallas Police until they arrested him, but he allegedly carried two pieces of identification, one with an alias, so they were not sure of his identity until he was taken to the station. A suspect was reported at the theater at 1:46; the arrest occurred at 1:52. Tippit was searching for Oswald as early as 12:45 and probably before that. The police probably knew who Oswald was and had been surveilling him and perhaps even using him as an informant. But this was unofficial and not admitted. Tippit probably was duped to some extent but was also involved in the plot against Oswald and perhaps the plot against Kennedy as well.

The other police car at the scene was reported by witnesses Doris Holan and Sam Guinyard. Witness Virginia Davis seemed to suggest that other policemen were present immediately after the shooting. I study and analyze in detail in the book the very complex pattern of witness reports.

Butch Burroughs probably was correct about Oswald being in the theater earlier than the official story has it. The exact time he arrived is not entirely certain. Burroughs said he entered at about 1 p.m. or minutes after. But Earlene Roberts said Oswald was at the rooming house until about 1:04. So Burroughs may have been off by some minutes. The official record shows that a suspect was reported in the theater at 1:46. It's  been a question where Oswald was between 1:04 and 1:46. Burroughs seems a credible witness.

Other researchers and journalists have speculated from December 1963 that Tippit may have been tracking down Oswald. I studied the frantic actions of Tippit as reported by Earl Golz, Greg Lowrey, and other researchers. Tippit clearly gave signs of hunting for a man.

I had a revealing interview with Edgar Lee Tippit, the father of the late officer. The elder Tippit was a lively ninety when I interviewed him. He revealed to me that after his son's death, another Dallas police officer went to J. D.'s widow, Marie, and told her he and J. D. had been sent by the police to hunt down Oswald. Whether this was to capture him or kill him is not certain, but the evidence indicates that the latter is a strong possibility. This was at a time when Oswald's identity was not officially known to the DPD, although there is evidence indicating they knew about him and had fingered him as the patsy.
The other officer told Marie that he had not made it to the scene of the shooting because he became involved in an auto accident. This story had never been reported before, and Edgar Lee Tippit had never been interviewed.

I found evidence that there was an auto accident near the time and place of the Tippit shooting. I studied the police dispatch tapes, FBI reports, HSCA interviews, and other documents to ascertain the movements of other officers around Oak Cliff. I had the first interview by a researcher with Tippit witness T. F. Bowley. Other policemen were behaving suspiciously in Oak Cliff besides Tippit. I believe another policeman or perhaps two policeman and probably a civilian as well were involved in the shooting of Tippit. I go into great detail on all this in the book and offer a wealth of evidence. I identify possible suspects in both shootings and exonerate others, including Oswald. Edgar Lee Tippit also provided me with other important information about his son, who in other books has been a mostly shadowy figure. I also had candid interviews with, among other people, Tippit's mistress Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon, his rightwing employer Austin Cook, and Detective James Leavelle, who headed the "investigation" of the Tippit killing.

“Fortunately there are many roads that lead to Rome and more than one way of exploring the murder of JFK. Some of them are more scenic. Some are more interesting. Some take the long route and some are more direct. Some lead to dead ends and are boring. But in the end it all adds to the rich variety of life and stimulates the mind…”   -  Magda Hassan   Deeppoliticsforum.com